Who's hurt the American economy most? The line-up features greedy bankers, lazy lawmakers, anxious executives and two more unusual suspects: well-respected economists.

Yet, suspicion has fallen on Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart for good reason. The pair wrote a 2010 economic study that was the economic equivalent of the Bush administration's spurious claims about Iraqi WMDs. It pushed nations into a war against government, and we may still be paying the price in unemployment and slow growth.

Now, the economists have responded with a stubborn, pouting defense that's as watery as their initial research, and it's worth calling them out on it.

For one thing, Reinhart and Rogoff insist that despite this "academic kerfuffle", austerity is sound policy. Their research provided austerity's pillars – supports built onflawed data, now fallen. For months, the International Monetary Fund has declared that austerity damages economies. Reinhart and Rogoff's refusal to let go may remind younger economists of the movie Mean Girls, in which one girl chides another for trying to make a nonsense word popular:

Reinhart and Rogoff keep trying to make austerity happen. It's not going to happen.

The economists also imply that they're innocent academics whose stunning data was abused by evil politicians. They deplore the "politicization of economics". Like J Robert Oppenheimer, they're horrified research could be used to make a bomb.

"That paper, along with other research we have published, has frequently been cited – and, often, exaggerated or misrepresented – by politicians, commentators and activists across the political spectrum … As career academic economists … we find these attacks a sad commentary on the politicization of social science research. But our feelings are not what's important here."

Plaintive line about feelings aside, Reinhart and Rogoff are trying to distance themselves from politics. But Reinhart, at least, was not always a "career academic economist"; she spent much of the 1980s at the very un-academic Bear Stearns.

Importantly, neither complained about "politicization" when the US Senate often cited their work. Their site even brags about many political citations: they knew quite well when their idea was popular, but didn't decry misunderstandings at the time.

The disingenuousness goes on: they chose to be political. They went to Washington and sold austerity, hard. From a book by Senator Tom Coburn:

"Johnny Isakson … stood up to ask his question: 'Do we need to act this year? Is it better to act quickly?'

'Absolutely,' Rogoff said. 'Not acting moves the risk closer,' … 'You have very few levers at this point,' he warned us."

Similarly, when Reinhart testified to the Senate, she reiterated the note of fear, euphemistically calling "austerity" an "adjustment" – which is the equivalent of calling the Great Recession "the recent unpleasantness".

"The sooner our political leadership reconciles itself to accepting adjustment, the lower the risks of truly paralyzing debt problems down the road … Countries that have not laid the groundwork for adjustment will regret it."

That is, as they say in boardrooms and mob films, a "hard sell". And here's another misleading bit, in which they claim to believe in fluid economics:

"Does high debt merely reflect weaker tax revenues and slower growth? Or does high debt undermine growth? Our view has always been that causality runs in both directions, and that there is no rule that applies across all times and places."

This is not exactly right. If they truly believed that high debt and weaker growth were equally intertwined, they'd also believe in actively spurring growth. Yet their past statements cling to one premise: cutting debt helps growth. Here's Reinhart in an interview with Der Spiegel:

"The best way of dealing with a debt overhang is to never get into one. Once you have one, what can you do? You can pray for higher growth, but good luck! Historically it doesn't happen – you seldom just grow yourself out of debt. You need a combination of austerity, so that you don't add further to the pile of debt, and higher inflation."

Suddenly, after the "kerfuffle", they say they have always seen austerity as just one element of good policy:

"Austerity seldom works without structural reforms – for example, changes in taxes, regulations and labor market policies – and if poorly designed, can disproportionately hit the poor and middle class."

You can comb Reinhart's comments: she blames debt for most everything. The economists did not give nearly enough airtime to structural reforms, if they supported them. They preferred the same point over and over: cut debt or suffer.

These are two of the brightest minds in economics, respected for good reason, and talented at explaining difficult concepts. The passion of hard work could have led them to truly believe in, and push, their research. But passion can become hubris, and hubris can cloud vision – even when everyone else sees the facts for what they are.

Reinhart and Rogoff don't know everything, and they're smart enough to know that themselves. They should show some remorse and reconsider austerity.